Troitsk as the center of new Moscow

In the “Tribune” section we publish the speech of Academician Viktor Pavlovich Maslov. Let us remind you that the idea of ​​this column is to give an opportunity to speak out to scientists whose professional merits and high status are undoubted. The material is published regardless of how much the expressed opinion agrees with the point of view of the editors themselves. We refrain from making any comments and the materials are not subject to significant editorial changes.

First of all, I would like to note that the prestige of scientists is falling sharply both in our country and in the USA: the country does not need scientists so much when there is no intense rivalry, competition and race during the US war with Nazi Germany, a race associated with the development of nuclear weapons and confrontation USSR and USA in the Cold War.

In our country, with an academic ID you could once go to any office, to any official. Now they won’t even let you into the service toilet in the hospital.

It has even become indecent to wear badges of a State Prize and Lenin Prize laureate after obtaining a reception from an official. He only looks at what car you drove and how expensive your watch is.

However, in small scientific oases (such as Cambridge or Oxford), the prestige of scientists has been preserved. And there the scientist feels comfortable, which makes his life much easier and contributes to his scientific work. Therefore, such oases must be preserved for the benefit of science.

Oases are divided into natural and artificial, i.e. those that are created by man. Cities, especially the capitals of large states, can also be divided according to this principle. The city of exceptional beauty, which was founded “in spite of an arrogant neighbor,” as the great poet said, differs from Moscow, which was formed in a natural historical way as the center - the capital of the Russian state. One contemporary said: “The Russian people realized in 1812 that the true capital was Moscow.” How many times Moscow was burned and tried to be wiped off the face of the earth, like Carthage, but it survived and grew stronger.

If we consider Troitsk as a scientific center (which should remain an important scientific and educational island in the structure of the new Moscow), then we can assume that it also originated spontaneously, unlike all other science cities.

Note that major discoveries, as a rule, occur in a society that is sufficiently mature for these discoveries. It is not without reason that several scientists often simultaneously come to such discoveries independently of each other (such as Newton and Leibniz, Heisenberg and Schrödinger). The enthusiasm and intellectual excitement caused by such a discovery also infects the scientific environment in which it occurred. Less than half a century passes from Planck’s discovery of quantum theory in 1900, which caused a revolution in the ideology of physics, to its implementation, which already entailed political changes in the world (the creation of the atomic bomb).

The creation of an environment such as that which developed at the beginning of the 20th century in Göttingen, Germany, not artificially, but by spontaneous generation, possessing a certain pole of attraction, was one of the significant factors in accelerating this process.

In the USSR, mathematical schools of the 1930s were destroyed by the war. The war to a large extent destroyed the natural layer between the generation of grandfathers and grandchildren (my generation) in science. In turn, the gap between my generation and today’s emerging generation of scientists occurred as a result of the economic catastrophe that led to the collapse of the USSR and the widespread emigration of scientists from our country.

But it's not too late to cement this hole.

The plan for the dispersal of scientific centers in our country apparently originated with N. Khrushchev, who seemed to be balancing on the brink of war (the Caribbean crisis). The Novosibirsk scientific town arose by government decree and as a result of the enthusiasm of academician. M.A. Lavrentyev, who personally captivated a large cohort of scientists with this idea. For moving to Siberia, many of these scientists were awarded the titles of academicians and corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which in those days were considered extremely prestigious.

Such scientific centers were formed by government decree. However, our science city self-generated and self-developed. Let me remind you of this story.

At the end of the 30s, it was planned to create a geographical laboratory in the village of Krasnaya Pakhra, but it was not completed. In 1939, the Pavlovsk Observatory in Leningrad was transformed into a research institute of terrestrial magnetism and in August 1944, during a spontaneous emergency plan for the evacuation of scientific institutes, it was evacuated to these unfinished buildings, without heating, water, electricity and sewerage. Having moved the pigsty, they equipped a magnetic observatory here. The means of transportation was the horse Almaz. But after the war, the Institute did not return to its beloved Leningrad. The location in the Moscow region turned out to be favorable for the development of the experimental base, since there was no railway nearby and electromagnetic waves excited by electric trains did not interfere with the experiment.

Later, on the territory of the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism and Radio Wave Propagation (IZMIRAN), the laboratory of Acad. A.P. Aleksandrova (“Magnitka”) on demagnetizing ships so that our fleet does not attract magnetic mines. Academician played a huge role here. Velikhov. whose versatile approach is well known to everyone. Quite quickly, other institutes began to use the territory of IZMIRAN and its surroundings for their research (for example, employees of the Institute of Earth Physics used nearby basements for seismic measurements).

The overall scientific potential of the Troitskoye village is growing rapidly. The children of local residents, the children of construction workers who settled here, and a relatively large percentage of children of scientific workers studied together in two schools, where the wives of scientific workers taught. Almost all of the graduates of these schools went to study at Moscow (mostly) technical universities, and then returned to work in their city. New departments were formed in a number of universities (Moscow Higher Technical University, Moscow Power Engineering Institute, etc.), and in Troitsk they began to create MHD generators for geosensing. At the same time, a major breakthrough was made in the design of laser beams.

In 1986, the Baytik Informatics Center was built and equipped with personal computers, where work was carried out with children, from preschoolers to high school graduates. Since that time, there has been a widespread passion among young people for computer science under the guidance of enthusiastic teachers-programmers.

Communication between scientists of different specialties, who were transported from Moscow on special buses, contributed to the development of science, since, as a rule, new ideas arise at the intersection of scientific disciplines. Several clubs and a House of Scientists were created in the city, where they could communicate.

In modern Troitsk, industrial institutes have split off from academic institutions. One of their organizers heads the City Duma. The mayor of the city was not only a plasma physicist, but also a man whose quick intelligence and correct choice of optimal solutions are known throughout the country.

Two Nobel laureates headed laboratories in Troitsk, several scientists living in the city received the title of academicians and corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. And, despite the general passion for profit, which was characteristic first of all in the United States and then spread throughout the world, the spirit and excitement of applied science and innovation have been preserved in Troitsk.

The fruitful creative work of scientists was helped by the fact that large forests protected Troitsk from the smog of Moscow. There is also an uninhabited forest area outside the city. It is not built up with dachas, since the railway never passed through here. It must be remembered that the forest is necessary for scientists, whose brains never rest, like water for fish.

In Troitsk, a layer of scientists remained who were not knocked out by the war and who did not emigrate. Many of the city's scientists worked on a closed line. They were not taken into the army, and they did not go to work abroad; their secret works, as a rule, were not known abroad.

Now they are trying in every possible way to return emigrant scientists to Russia. Of course, the sons of the fatherland from Western Europe are good for the mind, but the spirit of the fatherland preserved in our children and students is more important.

We scientists love the spirit of Trinity, an oasis in which we can breathe easier. Remembering Ostap Bender’s lecture about the Vasyuki, I may repeat his speech in some way: I dream of a time when all scientists emigrate to Troitsk and their children and students also want to devote their lives to big science.